Nuggets Hand Hornets 7th Straight Defeat

The young New Orleans Hornets are in the midst of the longest losing streak in the Western Conference after falling on the road Sunday night to the Denver Nuggets 102-84.

Hornets head coach Monty Williams vocalized his displeasure after the game, pointing to his team's lack of energy and effort.

"It doesn't matter what the score is, you want to try to play winning basketball," explained Williams. "We have some guys on our team that probably won't be in the league next year because they're not playing like NBA players.

"It's my job to show them why. In order for us to get better, we have to continue to help our guys on the floor until we can get some more pieces in here that are going to help us win games."

Telling words from Williams, who has watched his team struggle defensively during the current losing streak. The prior two seasons of Williams' tenure with New Orleans, his team's blueprint has been defense. When guys aren't hustling on D, Monty won't accept it.

Without Anthony Davis (out at least two more weeks with stress fracutre in ankle) and Eric Gordon (out at least two more weeks with knee injury), the Hornets margin for error is extremely slim. Sunday night, there were plenty of errors.

Turnovers crushed New Orleans for the second consecutive game. Denver turned over the Hornets 14 times, turning it into 26 points.

A few bright spots for New Orleans were rookie Brian Roberts and veteran Ryan Anderson. Roberts took advantage of his extended playing time, scoring a team-high 17 points to go with his 5 assists. More importantly, he didn't turn the ball over during his 23 minutes of playing time.

Anderson scored 16, going 3-6 from beyond the arc. He failed to score in the second half, althought Williams rested him on the bench for a large portion of the 3rd and 4th quarters once the score got out of hand.

New Orleans has an even tougher test Monday night, battling the Los Angeles Clippers on the back-end of a road back-to-back. The game will be the last of the Hornets 4 game road swing. Tip-off is set for 9:30.